Archive

‘Japanese parliamentary panel has found that the incident at Fukushima nuclear plant has been a “man-made disaster” and not only due to the tsunami that hit the country last year.

“It is clear that this accident was a man-made disaster,” the panel said in a report released on Thursday. It also criticized “governments, regulatory authorities and Tokyo Electric Power” for lacking “a sense of responsibility to protect people’s lives and society.”‘

Its fate was also uncertain in the United States. Despite the Obama administration signing its intent to honor the deal last year, there was a looming constitutional showdown on whether Congress, not the administration, held the power to sign on to ACTA.

Overall, not a single nation has ratified ACTA, although Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea last year signed their intent to do so. The European Union, Mexico and Switzerland, the only other governments participating in ACTA’s creation, had not signed their intent to honor the plan.